How Marketing Teams Are Leading Business Transformation with Wrike

Your biggest customer is demanding a new product feature. Your tried-and-true lead source is drying up. The competition is nipping at your heels. The only way to power through and come out on top? Business transformation.

Who knew two words could sound so insurmountable and scary? True, business transformation is a big deal: It’s the opportunity to “rethink your business operating models to deliver breakthrough value,” as Deloitte says.

But the longest journey starts with a single step, and the small, positive habits teams develop today can lead to large scale business transformation over time.

The ability to operate more efficiently and deliver unprecedented value depends largely on the way work is taken in, assigned, managed, delivered, and measured. Our experience with more than 17,000 leading companies has led us to define four key disciplines that teams must focus on to achieve this level of Operational Excellence: Planning, Process, Collaboration, and Visibility.

Great companies know they’re only as strong as their weakest link. One team’s call for more flawless execution is sure to influence others. As the first touchpoint in the customer journey, and arguably the most cross-functional department in the organization, marketing is uniquely positioned to lead the charge toward adopting good habits and achieving business transformation.

We recently surveyed more than 325 Wrike marketing customers to learn more about how they have improved Planning, Process, Collaboration, and Visibility on their teams. Here are some of our key findings.

Minimize Stress & Maximize Output with Planning

Even the most organized teams fall prey to “urgent” requests. But consistently managing projects on an ad-hoc basis and treating each new task as a fire drill wears on employees, causing debilitating stress and burnout over time.

This is why predictability is the bedrock of high-functioning teams. Having insight into upcoming work allows more strategic project prioritization, and prevents last-minute scrambling to meet deadlines. Some 63% of marketers have seen an improvement in their teams' stress levels since switching to Wrike, according to the survey.

Having all the information needed to start on a project upfront also allows teams to do more work, and do it faster. The majority of survey respondents report the ability to complete projects 1.5-2x faster with Wrike.

Process Structure Breeds Innovation

“Process” is often considered a dirty word—especially by creatives and divergent thinkers. On the contrary, process is actually an enabler of creativity and innovation.

Employees spend eight hours each week searching for information or re-working inefficient processes, according to a recent Workplace Knowledge Productivity survey of 1,000 Americans. That’s one full workday that could be better spent strategizing new solutions and focusing on growth.

The majority of our survey respondents report experiencing a significant or extremely significant improvement in process structure, organization, and effectiveness with Wrike. Some 50% also list “less admin work and more time to be creative/strategic” as one of the biggest Wrike benefits.

Structured, repeatable processes continuously deliver proven results and make it easier to optimize for success. About 75% of marketers have seen a “significant improvement” in the quality and consistency in their work since switching to Wrike.

Teams waste even more time consolidating project details and chasing feedback across spreadsheets and notebooks. Too much back-and-forth prevents workers from making decisions and taking action. There has to be a better way!

The majority of marketers save 1-2 hours per person, per week by minimizing emails and meetings with Wrike’s collaboration tools. 43% of respondents also report using Wrike cut asset review and approval times in half.

Visibility Conquers Work Roadblocks

Do you know how much time your team is spending on particular projects? Are tasks being completed on time? Do they keep getting stuck in a certain step in the process? It’s nearly impossible to answer key operational questions like these when projects, deadlines, feedback, and files are scattered across platforms.

Identifying and resolving issues quickly requires visibility into your work. This enables teams to continually optimize their processes and anticipate problems before they happen.

Using Wrike as a single source of project truth and leveraging the platform’s Dashboards, Reports, and metadata has improved most marketers’ work visibility by upwards of 50%. What’s more, 35% of respondents list “the ability to identify and overcome work roadblocks” among the top Wrike benefits.

The Mark of Business Transformation

How do you know if your company is on the path toward business transformation? Growth!

About 57% of marketing teams using Wrike for at least three months have already grown in size. And more than half of respondents who replaced a competitive solution with Wrike now have bandwidth to take on at least three more projects per month.

Business transformation requires companies to explore different tools and technologies that support new growth and efficiencies. Nailing these four key disciplines and achieving Operational Excellence depends largely on choosing the right collaborative work management platform for your marketing team.

Start leading your company toward business transformation today, and try Wrike free for 14 days!